Using solid hardwood as flooring is a very old practice. Early wood floors ranged from halves of logs or boards placed over a dirt floor to sawn wood planks fastened across floor joists. The boards were unsanded and unfinished. As technology progressed, the process for making floorboards included making the boards smoother by hand planing the boards. An oil, wax, or resin was sometimes rubbed into finer floors to put a seal or finish on the top surface of the floor. In order to fit the boards more tightly together and to add strength to the span between the floor joists, geometric variations (e.g., a tongue and groove) were added (e.g., molded) to the edges of the boards. The development of kiln-drying technology enabled significant improvement in dimensional stability of the wood that was affected by seasonal moisture changes. Most of the later additions to the process of manufacturing solid wood flooring increased its usability, strength, appearance, serviceability, and/or dimensional stability.
Presently, manufacturing jobsite finished solid wood flooring includes some or most of the following steps: sawing logs into boards, air drying and kiln-drying the boards, planing the rough sawn boards, ripping the boards into more narrow strips, sawing out defects, molding the strips to have a tongue on one long side and a groove on the other long side, molding the ends of the strip to have a tongue on one end and groove on the other end, installing the strips in a building, sanding the strips after they are installed, and spreading several finish coats on the entire surface of the floor.
Numerous problems with the prior process for manufacturing solid wood flooring exist, such as inaccuracies in molded solid wood flooring resulting in gaps between the joints. Also, moisture is absorbed into the wood leading to dimensional instability. Others have tried to produce dimensionally stable wood. For example, processes have included laminating layers of wood together. This technology increases some dimensional stability, however, these laminated layers of wood (e.g., engineered and floating floors) lack the appeal of solid wood floors in sound, feel, and appearance. Others have produced factory finished products. Factory finished products, however, lack the desirable match and appearance of a jobsite finished floor.
The present invention addresses and applies a novel technology to the aforementioned problems.